- Intense
- Exciting
- Improvised
Because we had so much to shoot and a busy cast, as director, I felt as though we should make the best use of our time by starting as soon as possible. We collected our kit on the Friday and went straight to location to shoot five of our scenes. However, we soon discovered that due to a faulty XLR lead, our sound input was terrible. We toyed with the idea of using the internal mic, hoping that this might add to style of the film, and emphasize the 'behind the scenes' vision. But after much deliberation it was decided that someone should head back to campus and collect a new lead (Rosie Harris wins 'Hero of the Day 2010' for that). Although this took nearly 3 hours (mainly due to rush hour traffic), I don't regret this decision at all. We had allowed plenty of time over the entirety of the weekend for any unforeseen circumstances.
Our shoot that was meant to start at 3pm didn't begin until 6:00pm.
The filming itself on the first day went very well, despite the weather. And due to the late start we didn't have enough daylight hours either, so had to make a few compromises concerning exterior scenes. But after swapping some of the scenes around we still managed to film as much as we intended on the first day. Everybody gave 100% effort.
The second day began slowly. I don't feel as though our time management was executed particularly well. We attempted to apply a tracking shot to our opening film noir scene, without actually using tracks. Mistake! Inevitably we spent too long trying to get that scene just right, I believe we had approx. 12 takes. For a scene that we had originally allowed 1 hour to shoot in total (inc. all 14 shots) took nearly 2 hours to capture. As a result, some of the cast were upset about being made to wait so long for their scenes, and most of the crew were feeling the pressure to get scene 1 in the bag. This was understandable, but they were all easily bribed with fish and chips and the mood was eventually raised.
The rest of the filming on Saturday went without a glitch. The weather was still terrible, so we continued with most of our interior scenes. There were a couple of scenes which we huddled under umbrellas, but thankfully on the final shooting day we got some brilliant sunshine, so were able to shoot our important exterior scene for Steve's speech.
One of the last scenes that we shot on the Saturday was the film's final scene - in which Owen the scriptwriter destroys the set and attacks Hubert Hall. Originally we had intended to shoot this scene outside with a club/bat and lots of blood. However, due to the unfavourable weather at the time we had to hold an emergency meeting to rewrite the scene. There was no way that we could have shot this scene as an interior with all the blood. Although short films can work unrealistically we decided it would be less believable for Owen to attack the cast and crew wielding a bat, and there not be any blood. So instead we re-wrote the scene with a gun.
We improvised again whilst filming this scene when Josh (Cameraman) managed to end up in front of Owen as he tried to exit, resulting in a chase. It was agreed that it was more entertaining as a story-line to see Hugh being threatened and then involve the character of the Cameraman more. I felt as though this worked on the level that the film we made was a
moc-k-umentary and so the involvement of the Cameraman as a character was essential. It just so happened that the ending of the film came about through unrehearsed choreography. It was also unnerving how naturally Rolf Pratt (Owen) conveyed the role of psychotic killer, "Does anybody want to be a hero?... Where you going CameraBoy?... I'm gonna put a bullet between your eyes!" -all Rolf's own work. Brilliant.
Sunday went incredibly smoothly, mainly due to the fact we had beautiful weather. We rapped at about 6pm and must have cleared out from our location around 7pm ish after grabbing a few establishing shots. And, so as not to break tradition, we then enjoyed an excellent rap party.
I really felt as though everybody involved put their all into making this film and I really hope that it shows.
I really enjoyed my role as director. The responsibility was huge, but as this was a group film, we made most of our decisions collectively. I think this was very important in order to maintain a group mentality.
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